Ambassador Satinder K Lambah

Aspen Institute Trustee
, Chairman, Ananta Aspen Centre and Former Special Envoy of the Prime Minister of India

Ambassador Satinder K Lambah was the Special Envoy of the Prime Minister of India from 2005-14 with the rank of Minister of State from 2010 onwards.

Ambassador Satinder K Lambah was the Special Envoy of the Prime Minister of India from 2005-14 with the rank of Minister of State from 2010 onwards. He was the Co-Chairman of the Task Force on National Security 2011 – 2012. Ambassador Lambah was the President of Association of Indian Diplomats in 2005. He was a Convener of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) in 2004-05 and the President of the Federation of Indo-German Societies in India from 2005-2014. He was the Special Envoy of the Government of India for Afghanistan and led the Indian delegation to the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan in 2001-02. In 2001, Ambassador Lambah Chaired a Committee on the Re-organization of Ministry of External Affairs and Indian missions abroad. Ambassador Lambah has served in several Missions abroad including as the Ambassador of India to the Russian Federation, Ambassador of India to the Federal Republic of Germany, High Commissioner of India to Pakistan, Consul General of India, San Francisco, and Ambassador of India to Hungary. He was Deputy Secretary General of the 7th Non Aligned Summit held in Delhi in 1983 and later Coordinator of the Commonwealth Heads of Governments meeting in India. His specializations include Economic Diplomacy and dealing with India’s neighbours. He opened the Indian Embassy in Bangladesh after liberation. He has been involved in many successful economic ventures. For instance, the first Export of an Indian Car (Sale of Maruti Cars) took place when he was Ambassador to Hungary. India’s largest investment ever upto that time of over $2 Billion in Sakhalin-I was made in 2001 when he was Ambassador to Russia. For this, in March 2015, he was conferred the “Urja Energy Security Award.” During his tenure as Consul General of India in San Francisco (1989-91) he was conferred a “Trustees’ Citation” by the University of California, Berkeley in 1991 for his initiating, coordinating, and spearheading the campaign which generated over US$2 million in a short span of four months for Indian Studies, resulting in the creation of two Chairs of India Studies, a bi-annual lecture by a distinguished scholar from India, and an annual scholarship at the Graduate School of Journalism at U.C Berkeley. He is married to Nilima Lambah, author of “A Life Across Three Continents – Recollections of a Diplomat’s Wife.”